


The Name of the Game

by demon60327akuma



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, Kitsune!Tammy, but not really, garden, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 23:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17476883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demon60327akuma/pseuds/demon60327akuma
Summary: “Do you love me-”“Of course! With all my heart!”“Then that’s all that matters.”





	The Name of the Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catfishofoldin99colours](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catfishofoldin99colours/gifts).



> So... Idk if I did this story justice, I'm not the most satisfied with where it is now. It feels kinda all over the place. I feel like it could've been much better if someone else has written it. I'm working on a comic that goes with this fic and hopefully I'll get that done soon.  
> Thank you to Leslie who beta this for me, you're the best!

All the girls were at Lou’s loft that night - the night that turned Nine Ball’s world upside down.

Ever since the heist, they got together every Friday just to hang out. The heist had created a bond between them that felt like a family. Lou would always be in charge of making dinner and usually Tammy would be helping, but tonight, she went away into her room at the loft. Lou and Debbie didn’t seem to be bothered by that, and since they weren’t concerned, Nine Ball trusted them enough to believe that there was nothing to worry about.

_ Maybe she just needs some time to herself. Maybe the kids are giving her trouble again. Maybe her husband is…  _ She cut herself off in her thoughts,  _ No, she made it clear that he was okay with the relationship we have. She insisted that he’s a nice guy. He can’t be the problem, can he? _ Nine Ball was lost in her thoughts when Constance poked her shoulder.

“Dad asked you to go get Tammy from her room.”

Nine Ball stared at Lou blankly for a moment before she stood up. Rose, being the sweetheart she was, looked over with concern,

“Darling, are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just thinking ‘bout something.” Nine Ball brushed over the subject and went up the staircase.

* * *

 

_ Leslie believed in magic, more or less. Or at least, she wanted to believe that the mythical creatures she’d read about actually existed. Those fantasies were an escape for her. It wasn’t that her family was something she needed escape from, they gave her a sufficient amount of resources and access to basically anything she wanted, but they were never there. They would say “I love you” to each other, but there was no weight behind those words. She didn’t mind much after a while, considering the fact that her parents let her do whatever she wanted to. _

_ The only person who truly cared about her was Veronica. She was the only person who’s around her most the time. Sure, her parents knew how good she was at programming. They got her whatever equipment she wanted and needed, but they didn’t pay much attention to what she was actually doing. She could be hacking into national security, or creating a whole new type of AI that no one had even came close to making. But her parents wouldn’t have a clue as of what she did and quite frankly, she got used to it. She no longer needed validation from her parents. _

_ But Veronica, on the other hand, had always been the reason why Leslie hadn’t just left. The two of them would come up with all these fantasy worlds filled with mythical creatures when they were little, when their parents were still around a bit more. Leslie had never told anyone else about these fantasies. She had never showed anyone the programs she made that brought these fantasies to life, fantasies that she dreamt of. Not even Veronica knew about them. _

_ When their parents passed away in an accident, Leslie managed to hack the system so Veronica and her wouldn’t have to go through foster families. She had a steady income from working for a software development company before her parents passed. However, that income didn’t seem to be quite enough for Veronica and her if they wanted to live a bit more comfortably, so she started to pick up some anonymous jobs through a few secure sources that she had gathered. That was when the hard reality hit her. _

_ She took on the name Nine Ball, and locked the fantasies away in a box, never to be opened again. _

* * *

 

Nine Ball couldn’t believe what she was seeing when she opened the door to Tammy’s room. Tammy looked quite… different. Her back was to the door, so she didn’t notice the unexpected visitor. Nine Ball couldn’t make any noise to signal her arrival as she was too shocked what the sight in front of her.

From behind, Nine Ball could see all nine tails coming out of Tammy’s tailbone. She had two cat like ears on her head. She was still wearing the same tealish-blue sweater and white collared shirt she had on earlier that evening, when Nine Ball saw her. However, her jeans were gone, and only a pair of lavender purple satin panties were left to cover her bottom. Her beautiful blonde hair rested on her shoulder as strands flowed passed the brush.

Nine Ball was not only stunned by the non-human characteristics, she was also stunned by the beauty in front of her eyes.

“T-Tammy?” Nine Ball stuttered, noticing how quiet her voice was.

The blonde quickly turned to see who was at the door, surprised to hear Nine Ball’s voice. “Oh! Hey, Nine… What’re you doing up here?” She tried to hide the panic in her voice.

“Uh… Lou asked me to come up to, uh, get you for dinner.” Nine Ball couldn’t take her eyes off of Tammy’s body. She still couldn’t comprehend what she was looking at. “Uh, so, is this like, a bad time or somethin’? I can go tell Lou that.”

“Of course it’s Lou,” Tammy muttered under her breath. “I think I know why she asked you to come get me.”

“Okay? So, what’s all this?” Nine Ball gestured at Tammy’s non-human features.

“Well, I’m not human, obviously,” The blonde said sarcastically, “I’m a kitsune. That’s a…”

“Japanese mythical creature.” Nine Ball interrupted. “I thought they aren’t real.”

“Well, they are. Along with many other mythical creatures,” Tammy responded, “hold on, this’ll be a lot easier to explain if we’re somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else? Where?”

“Just, give me a minute to change back, then we can go.” Tammy waved her hand as she walked towards the bathroom.

“Tam, I don’t like this vagueness…” Her voice grew quieter.

“I know, sweetheart,” Tammy responded as she walked out the bathroom, looking like a presentable human again, “but it’s really difficult to explain if you can’t see it.”

“See? See what?”

“C’mon, let’s go downstairs. The girls would be worried otherwise.” The blonde began padding out the room, “I promise it’ll all make sense once I can explain everything.”

Nine Ball bit her lips together as she followed Tammy down, still uncertain of what to make of all this.

As they made their way down the stairs, Tammy kept turning around to make sure Nine Ball was still following her, giving her reassuring looks. Nine Ball tried her best to act like she was cool with all of it, but her fingers running over the edge of her sweater said otherwise. Tammy wished she could just soothe all those uncertainties away, but she couldn’t.

When they reached the bottom of the staircase, the other girls in the living room all shot them a curious  look, but there wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary to them. Nine Ball was thankful that they didn’t push any further and instead went back to whatever they’d been doing before; she didn’t want them to ask questions about whatever this was that she didn’t quite understand herself.

Tammy started to walk towards the kitchen, where Debbie and Lou were making dinner together, quietly and up in each other’s space as usual. Nine Ball was about to follow, but the blonde stopped her. Her lips parted, words and questions on the tip of her tongue. But the look in Tammy’s eyes was enough to let Nine Ball know she shouldn't ask, to just trust her right now.  So instead of following, she went to the front door.

By the time Tammy came back to her, Nine Ball was getting a bit anxious again. She wanted to trust Tammy, wanted to believe that everything would be explained, but she couldn’t help feeling lost. This was something that was unfamiliar to her and she didn’t like that. She didn’t like how it didn’t make any sense to her. She couldn’t believe that there was something that she didn’t understand.

“Shall we?” The blonde’s voice broke Nine Ball out of her reverie.

“Sure.”

* * *

 

It wasn’t long before Tammy led them to a rather hidden back alley. It felt like they’d been walking for a long time, but a quick check with her phone showed that they had only been out for less than ten minutes.

Tammy reached for Nine Ball’s hand and she instinctively took it.

“You ready?” Tammy asked.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

And with that, Tammy stepped on a stone by their feet, which triggered a gate to appear on the wall next to them.

Nine Ball was in so much shock that she didn’t know how to react. She thought this kind of trigger only existed in fairytales and mythologies, but then again, she just saw Tammy with nine tails and fox ears, so she really shouldn’t be that surprised.

Tammy led them through the gate, their fingers still intertwined. What was behind the gate was completely different than what was on the outside. If Nine Ball was shocked by the trigger at the gate, she was just in awe with what she was seeing now. All the colors were bursting into her eyes, the scents taking over her sense of smell, and the cool breeze brushing gently on her skin. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. How could there be such a beautiful garden in the middle of New York City? And how did they end up in this kind of open space after walking into a wall?

“I know you have a lot of questions,” Tammy interrupted her thoughts, “and I’ll try my best to answer all of them.” She turned to Nine Ball and looked her in the eyes, “Walk with me?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”

They walked towards a field of hydrangea as Tammy began to tell the story.

“So, most of the mythical creatures exist. And a lot of them stay in the safe havens like this one; there are several around the world, mostly in bigger cities. Every place looks a little different - for example, this one is a garden, whereas the one in Boston is a giant mansion - but they all have the same essentials. They are always hidden from the humans and only the non-humans can detect where the entrances are. They also have the ability to create whatever substance that is necessary for the creatures living in it, depending on who comes in and leaves. So if a vampire comes in, there would be a fountain of artificial blood for them, and it would disappear when the vampire leaves…” Tammy began to explain all the details of the shadow world, as she called the non-human community, from how they coexisted with the humans, to how they had hidden themselves from the humans, to the rules and order of the shadow world as per a pact made several centuries ago.

Nine Ball couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but the evidence was right in front of her eyes. She had to believe it because she could see all the creatures around the garden. She saw many different mythical creatures, from vampires and werewolves, to phoenix and pegasus, to qilin and serpents in Chinese mythology. They all seemed nice and lived peacefully among each other. Some of them even greeted Tammy and Nine Ball.

“I know, that’s a lot to process,” Tammy said.

“Yeah,” Nine Ball paused, “so, do Deb and Lou know about all this?”

The blonde took a second to construct her response. “They do, but they’re humans, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“How do they…”

“The Oceans have had ties with the shadow world for a long time. We were family friends, so she knew about me and knew how this world works.” Tammy continued walking towards the honeysuckles. “And when Lou came into the picture, Deb trusted her enough to let her in on the secret.”

“Oh, I should’ve guessed,” Nine Ball paused, “what about your husband?”

“Oh Sebastian? Um,” Tammy stopped in her track for a second, “it’s a more complicated situation.”

Nine Ball remained in silence as she didn’t know how to respond to that. Tammy had told her that her relationship with her husband wasn’t bad, and that he was okay with Tammy seeing her. But that was the extent of Nine Ball’s knowledge of Sebastian. They’d only met once and ever since, he had rarely come up when she was with Tammy. She had thought about doing some research about him, making sure he was who he said he was and that he was good to Tammy. But she decided against it in the end because she trusted Tammy.

“He’s also not a human. He’s an elf actually. Our families wanted us to get married, even though we didn’t want to because he’s my best friend and we would both feel weird if we dated. It just… didn’t feel right for either of us.” Tammy continued as they walked past a row of oak trees. “But for our family’s sake, we married each other. We act like a loving couple in front of everyone else, especially for our families, but we’re really still just best friends like we were before. The fact that he’s ace helped because our family knew that, so certain expectations aren’t there. Neither of us were looking for a partner really, so we just carried on with how we were before we got married. Not much had changed except for the kids. That is-” light lit up in Tammy’s eyes- “until I met you.” She turned to look at Nine Ball.

“Sebastian was cool with me seeing you because there wasn’t anything between us to begin with.” Tammy could barely resist herself from raising her voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all this in the beginning, it’s just…”

“You think I’d think you’re insane?”

“Sorta, yeah.”

“Why are you telling me about it now?”

“Well I didn’t really have a choice did I?” Tammy rolled her eyes, “Lou kinda just decided that you should know when she sent you to come get me today.”

“Why would she do that?” Nine Ball scowled.

“From her experience with Debbie and me, telling a human, an outsider, about the shadow world meant that we trust that person completely, with our whole life really. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you before now, I did, it just never really…”

“Came up? I got that.”

“Yeah.” Tammy’s face turned to the same shade of red as the tulips and roses around them. She still couldn’t believe Nine Ball as the type who would finish someone else’s sentence, but she absolutely loved that.

The two of them continued walking in silence for a bit; Nine Ball still digesting the information she had just obtained, and Tammy not knowing what else to say.

After what felt like eternity for Tammy, Nine Ball squeezed their hands together a bit tighter and stopped them on the side of the path. Tammy was worried what was gonna come next; she was afraid of the rejection, afraid that Nine Ball would walk away from this relationship after finding out the truth.

“I thought I’ve already seen everything there is to see in this world, through cameras and stuff. I thought nothing could escape the digital map, ya know?”

“We try our best to keep ourselves out of the picture.” Tammy carefully chose her words, looking down at their interlaced fingers.

“Babe, you don’t have to be so careful. I can feel the tension in you.” Nine Ball raised her other hand to life Tammy’s chin up. “I’m not mad, or annoyed, or whatever you think I’m feeling. I’m just-” She paused to search for the right word- “surprised, I guess.”

“I would be too, if I were you,” Tammy mumbled.

“Do you love me-”

“Of course! With all my heart!” Tammy rushed to respond, cutting off the last bit of sound coming from Nine Ball.

“Then that’s all that matters.”

“I thought you’re a really analytical person who wouldn’t understand this kind of supernatural things and I was really worri- hmm.” Nine Ball swallowed the rest of the words with a gentle yet passionate kiss. She wasn’t good with words, she had never been, but she knew just what to do to get Tammy to shut up. She knew the blonde could spiral out sometimes and this was her way to tell her not to worry about anything.

“Better?”

“Y-yeah,” Tammy was still in a bit of a daze, “that was nice.”

“Anything for you, babe.” Nine Ball lifted their linked hands and placed a gentle kiss on Tammy’s knuckles. “We should head back before they start looking for us.”

“Right, uh, this way.”

When they left the garden, time didn’t seem to have passed at all. Seeing the flash of confusion on Nine Ball’s face, Tammy explained,

“Time goes by 25 times slower on the outside, so technically we’ve been gone for no more than five minutes I’d say.”

“You just keep surprising me!” There was a bit of mischief in Nine Ball’s voice.

* * *

 

When they got back to the loft, Daphne, Rose, and Constance all looked back at the two, wondering where they’d been. Tammy made no effort to explain, only giving them a smile to show that they were okay. All of Nine Ball’s attention was on Tammy, she didn’t even spare the girls a glance.

The blonde let go of their interlaced fingers and went to help Debbie set up the table as if she had been there all this time. Nine Ball sat down with the rest of the girls, pulling her laptop out of nowhere and got to work, as if she’d been there the whole time.

“Where’d you guys go?” Constance sat down on the floor in front of Nine Ball.

“Nowhere.” She had to resist the urge to roll her eyes, but the look of her face did tell the girl to shut up.

“Alright! Dinner’s ready!” The Aussie accent was projected across the room, calling the girls over to the table.

It wasn’t long before the food was devoured by the girls, mostly by Constance.

They sat around the dinner table, chatting, catching up with each other’s lives, whenhen all of a sudden, without warning, Tammy got out of her seat. Everyone other than Debbie and Lou was shocked. Tammy rarely acted so abruptly, so the girls were all wondering what got into her.

The blonde walked around the table and stopped next to Nine Ball. She turned her chair around to see what her lover was up to, but she could never have guessed what Tammy was about to do.

It felt like everything was happening in slow motion. Tammy slowly dropping down onto one knee; one hand creeping into her pocket; a small, delicate, velvet box emerging in Nine Ball’s sight; the box snapping open. A ring. A band in platinum, engravings of strings of salvias, nothing more, nothing less.

As cliché as it sounds, all other noises faded for Nine Ball as soon as Tammy opened her mouth. For a moment, no words was registering in her mind. She could see Tammy’s lips moving, but she couldn’t hear a sound.

“…not asking you to marry me, that’s not our thing. But I love you so much. This won’t be a wedding or engagement ring, it’s a promise ring. I want us to grow old together. Would you… like that?”

“I… babe… that’s…” No words could describe how Nine Ball was feeling. She had never been good with words. She was most definitely overwhelmed by joy, but she didn’t show her emotions easily.

But of course, Tammy knew. She’d understand. Her arm stretched forward to hold Nine Ball’s hand, and Nine Ball gave in willingly. The ring slipped on her finger. The sparks in their eyes collided, words lingering on their lips, but no sound was made.

All the other girls were happy for them. They might have been cheering, laughing, clapping, but neither Tammy or Nine Ball noticed. Only each other was left in their own little world. At some point, the girls slipped away back into their own room, leaving the lovers some space to themselves.

The blonde interlaced their fingers once more, bringing the ring up to her lips. Nine Ball pulled her hand back and wrapped her other hand around the back of Tammy’s head. Their lips touched, brushing against each other, gently. They weren’t in any hurry. They were simply, enjoying this moment.


End file.
